CATL ‘Leads the Charge’ in Promoting and Supporting High Impact Teaching; Faculty Recognized As HIT Fellows

Pictured from left to right: Dr. Michelle Brodke, Dr. Steve Koppitsch, Dr. Chris Rump, Dr. Karen Eboch, Dr. Man Zhang 

Committee to Advance Teaching and Learning (CATL): Faculty Recognized

Written by Bailey Smith, College of Business Communications Intern

CATL, which includes representatives from each department, was created to be a catalyst to build a college-wide community innovating and implementing transformative learning that sets the College apart. The formation of CATL also aligns the College with one the University’s strategic goals: Provide undergraduate and graduate students a demonstrably superior and innovative learning experience.

One of the first tasks for CATL was creating a Teaching and Learning Framework that was based on overwhelming agreement among the business faculty on what defines a successful graduate and those educational drivers needed to accomplish preparing our graduates.

As part of its role to support, facilitate, and reward high impact teaching, CATL created a multifaceted incentive program in April 2019. There are four desired outcomes from the program. 1) to build on the Teaching and Learning Framework by using balanced sources of information to evaluate high impact teaching practices 2) to provide multiple pathways for faculty to be recognized for demonstrating superior teaching 3) to ensure recognition of all faculty who are teaching in the College and 4) to offer incentives that encourage faculty to share their high impact teaching practices with others, expanding perspectives, developing capabilities, and building community.

One of the specific programs within the College’s Incentive Program is the High Impact Teaching (HIT) Fellow Program. This program recognizes faculty members utilizing demonstrably superior teaching in their courses as described in the College’s Teaching and Learning Framework. All full-time faculty members in the College of Business are eligible to apply for the HIT Fellow Program.

Those selected from the application process become HIT Award Winners and undergo an intensive review process. They also receive professional development funds. During the Incentive Program’s first year, CATL selected five faculty as award winners - Dr. Michelle Brodke, a Firelands’ Campus Affiliate of the College and teaches in the management department; Dr. Karen Eboch, from the management department; Dr. Steve Koppitsch, from the marketing department; Dr. Chris Rump, from Applied Statistics and Operations Research; and Dr. Man Zhang, from management.

The Intensive Review Teams were led by a CATL member, and included a member of the Dean’s Office and a BGSU teaching and learning expert outside of the College of Business. The Intensive Review Teams spent an average of 30-40 hours on the review process, collecting data from course materials and interviews, observations from multiple classes, student surveys, and student focus groups and compiling the data into reports. From the reports, CATL reviewed the analytical data and recommended to the dean that all five faculty be honored as HIT Fellow Award Winners and two of them be named HIT Fellows.

The inaugural HIT Fellows selected this spring are Dr. Brodke and Dr. Eboch. Both HIT Fellows will serve a three-year term and will receive additional professional development funds. To showcase their best practices, they will be promoted within the College and BGSU community, as well as promoted broadly through media and other channels, to demonstrate how the BGSU College of Business is taking a leading role in effective teaching and learning.